For giving to feel like receiving #generosityday
I didn’t always get generosity. Sasha Dichter once ran a Generosity Experiment. For 30 days, he said yes to every request for help, for money, for anything from friends, people on the street, anyone. I loved the idea. I also thought it mildly crazy. I wanted to feel what he felt, but couldn’t get comfortable with it. Giving is supposed to feel good theoretically. But in reality, sometimes I feel bad after giving. For instance, I often struggle with what is the right amount to donate to charity. Once I finally pick a number, I feel worse. I feel like I haven’t given enough, but I also start wondering if that’s really the best way to help. Is that really the best use of my money.
Giving didn’t make me feel better. It made me feel conflicted.
In recent months, something changed, something clicked. I experienced acts of unexpected generosity that have led me to this: the giving must feel like receiving.
Generosity feels good to the giver only when we have the right intent. In too many instances, we have mixed intents. We want to be patted on the back. We worry about feeling good about being good. We wonder about the return on our generosity. I realized that mixed intents are what made me feel bad. For giving to feel right, we need to have the right intent. That comes about when the giving feels like we are receiving.
If you’ve never had the opportunity to attend a Wednesday meditation session, it is quite a profound experience. The Mehta family plays host. They open their house to friends, strangers, anyone who comes by every week. They invest the time to build this community, to create this meditation space. Then they provide a satisfying dinner to every single guest. The fact that they do this entirely free of charge is already an amazing act of generosity. You feel wowed by how they’ve created this feeling of abundance. You feel gratitude to be able to be part of the evening.
As if all that is not enough, we come to the part that really gets to me. Every week Nipun Mehta will basically say, we thank you for the opportunity to host this gathering.
What?? It sounds like it could be some ridiculously corny line, except that these hosts mean it fully. They are the ones who have given so much every Wednesday evening, we are the receivers, and here they are saying thank you. To have to listen to a “thank you” of that magnitude after having received so much generosity is… it is almost too much. But you see, for this family, giving feels exactly like receiving.
I have no idea how you get there. All I could think was, these people have seriously figured something out. I want that. That is the kind of generosity I seek in myself every time I give.
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In that spirit, I have made my Generosity Day pledge. Sasha Dichter & co. are rebooting Valentine’s Day as Generosity Day. If you’re intrigued, I encourage you to sign up too. I think it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to Valentine’s Day.
